Pickup trucks are useful vehicles for transporting large items or materials. Most pickup truck beds are designed to fit large, flat construction materials like drywall or plywood that are offered in 4′×8′ sizes.
While the ability to fit large, flat items is beneficial, many truck owners need to transport smaller items that do not occupy most of the space in a truck bed. As a result, aftermarket pickup truck bed storage systems have been developed in order to provide the ability to store smaller items in the truck bed as well. These storage systems, however, tend to reduce the ability to utilize the entire bed area, so oftentimes there must be a tradeoff between having the ability to store smaller items and the ability to transport construction materials.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/445,026 (Weller) discloses a storage system that is mounted directly to the bed of a pickup truck which provides storage boxes disposed on the sides of the bed and a center aisle in between the boxes. The center aisle can be selectively covered by a removable cover such that, when the cover is in place, the entire footprint of the bed may still be utilized for larger items, while smaller items may still be stored in the boxes or open section underneath. The entirety of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/445,026 is incorporated herein by reference.
Those storage systems that provide for both full bed access and smaller storage spaces tend to contain large components that may be both difficult to manufacture and costly to ship or transport. In addition, once those systems are installed, it may be difficult to remove if the entire bed depth is needed for any reason (such as needing to transport a large amount of construction materials that would require the full depth of the bed).
There exists a need in the market for an improved storage system for the bed of a vehicle that provides the ability to utilize the full bed area while storing smaller or oddly shaped items, and at the same time is smaller and less bulky than proposed solutions that are currently available, while providing for easy installation and removal, if necessary. The present invention provides an efficient storage system for the bed of a vehicle that addresses all of those issues.